Are They “The One” or Should You Run? ft. Matthew Hussey

Marie Forleo:

Matthew Hussey is a New York Times bestselling author, speaker, and renowned relationship coach. His YouTube channel is number one in the world for love life advice with over half a billion views. His advice reaches over 10 million followers weekly. Over the past 15 years, his proven approach has inspired millions through authentic, insightful, and practical advice, giving celebrities and everyday folks alike the tools to find love and feel confident, and in control of their happiness. I already liked you and respected you so much from our interactions, but I have to tell you, I fell in love with you as a human.

During the opening of your book, you wrote, "For most of my life, I've been a terrible person to date. I may have been an effective coach and speaker, albeit one in the surreal position of seeing comments under my videos that read. 'He would be the perfect guy to date.' They were wrong." And then I loved it. You shared this. "It's one of the reasons my content has been so hard hitting when I tell women what to look out for. It was a younger, more reckless version of myself. I was possibly the most dangerous kind of guy who's bad for you. The one you don't see coming." Matthew. Say more. All the things.

Matthew Hussey:

Well, I kind of, I suppose I really did get uncomfortable when I would see those comments over the years, because the last thing I ever wanted to be put on, at any point in my work, was any kind of pedestal.

Marie Forleo:

Same. Same.

Matthew Hussey:

I can't stand it. And anyone who thinks... I kind of wanted to say to anyone who thinks, "Oh, you must have been amazing today," or "You must have," I wanted to just go, "Let me tell you why you are wrong." And I suppose in some ways that's part of what... Well, one of the messages of the book is this idea that whatever anyone looks like from the outside, your real experience is going to be whatever that person is actually like to operate with and to be with. And I was not a great person to deal with in people's love lives, because I wasn’t really, I thought I was ready for a relationship, I wasn't ready for a relationship. I think I dated, almost, in a somewhat addictive fashion, where it was chasing feelings and experiences and highs. I got humbled in my own life, because I got my own heart broken and that was something I talk about early in the book.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah, I actually want to go there, because I thought it was so fascinating. So you were in the UK, and then you come over to LA and you're making one of your first YouTube videos. And the guy's looking at you. And I have to tell you because we do, meaning we do similar things in the sense that we create content and ideas and it always comes, and again, I feel like I know you on a soul level. It's from a true place of first wanting to learn and support ourselves, and then hopefully sharing anything that could possibly be of service to another human.

Shorten their learning curve, maybe a little bit, save them from a little pain we went through. And sometimes, doing what I do, I'm out in the street and filming something and people are looking at me, I'm like, "I'm nobody. Don't pay attention." When you were telling the story of this guy's just watching you creating this content, and then he said something to you, "You've never had your heart broken, have you?" Tell us about that moment, what was going on in your own consciousness, and then how that first heartbreak of yours had you re-examine some of your own rules?

Matthew Hussey:

Well, I think the video I was making at the time was three tips to overcome heartbreak. And this guy watched me the whole time. It is a weird thing when you get self-conscious that one person is watching you do something even though you're making a video that's going to be seen by hundreds of thousands if not millions of people, but one person's watching and you're like, "This is too much." And he was watching me the whole time and he watched me cheerily offering these tips for getting over heartbreak. And he just came over and he said, "You've never had your heart broken, have you?" And I thought you, "Fuck you."

Marie Forleo:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Matthew Hussey:

I was like, "You don't know me." But he was right. He was right. And the reason it agitated me at the time was because it spoke to this, what I felt was a kind of deficit in what I was doing, because I had always put myself, in some way, in the driver's seat in my love life. I think it was a form of... I struggled more than I realized to be vulnerable. And that was reflected in my love life by me always maintaining a feeling of control or being in the driver's seat. And that meant that I didn't get my heart broken. It wasn't because I was so, "Who could break my heart?" Or "Who was going to let go of me?" It was that I just didn't put myself in truly vulnerable situations.

And then I did, and I got my heart really broken. And that was one of the most humbling experiences of my life, because that story came back to me of that guy, because I was like, "That's what he meant." There's no way... When you are going through the depths of true heartbreak, where you are a zombie and you feel like you can't function, you can't eat, you can't sleep, you don't know what to do with yourself, you are just on the outside of your own life going through the motions. The idea of someone coming along and saying, "I've got three tips."

Marie Forleo:

You want to slap them.

Matthew Hussey:

You have no idea. People... It's a bit like... I always love the moment in the movie Inside Out where Joy keeps... All Joy knows is how to try to come along and inject joy into the situation. And Bing Bong is having a terrible time and Joy comes over and she's like, "It's not so bad, because this and that and the other," and Bing... And he just can't hear any of it. And then Sadness comes along and sits next to Bing Bong and says, "That's really sad what's happened to you." And he says, "Yeah, it is." And he starts to feel better. And it's because he didn't need Joy coming along and like reframing it for him in that moment.

Marie Forleo:

Guilty.

Matthew Hussey:

He needed someone to come along and sit in how hard of a time he was going... He was grieving and someone to come and sit in that grief with them. And that's a kind of... I feel like more and more it seems to be a bit of a lost art these days. Because we do live... And I have contributed to this, but in this self-development, optimization, "How can I stop you feeling bad as quick as possible," culture, that doesn't really allow us time to truly grieve. And I know in my life that grieving is something I have not done enough of. I sat with David Kessler, who's one of the world-leading experts on grief, and I sat with him for... I did a heartbreak series. And the whole point of it was to talk to different people about how to overcome heartbreak, much deeper than anything that I did 10 years ago.

And by the way, that marks an evolution even in my thinking, that now I'm not offering tips for heartbreak, I'm like, "Let me bring in a grief expert to come and talk about this from a perspective of grief." And anyone who watched that interview saw that within three minutes of him speaking... I meant for it to be for the audience, and I just started welling up. Because it was like... I really realized how much time in my life I've spent avoiding that kind of sitting in my feelings and allowing myself to feel things, how much time I've spent just rushing to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing, whatever I could do to escape ever really having to confront any of that.

Marie Forleo:

Preaching to the choir.

Matthew Hussey:

Yeah. It's hard. It's hard.

Marie Forleo:

It is.

Matthew Hussey:

It's really sitting and, and, and… connecting to those feelings is really, really hard. And it's taken a lot of work for me to get there. So now when I talk about these things, I'm still working on it, but I do, yeah, I try to understand where someone's coming from and sit with them for a bit, or as long as I can sit with them and encourage them to sit with it for much, much longer and connect with it.

Marie Forleo:

So you did such a brilliant job on this damn book. Thank you for this incredible contribution. Everybody needs to get this. And, so I'm curious about the inspiration behind it, because you had a first book probably like a decade or so.

Matthew Hussey:

Literally.

Marie Forleo:

Oh my god. And I don't know, you probably know this, but I wrote one, I don't even know how that... It was like, Make Every Man Want You or Make Yours Want You More: How to be So Irresistible You’ll Barely Keep From Dating Yourself. I'm like, "Who was I? Can I slap her?" She was great. She was doing her best at the time.

Matthew Hussey:

That's amazing.

Marie Forleo:

So I'm just curious of the impetus behind this... Again, I've always been sassypants. I'm probably going to look back hopefully in my nineties and be like, "Oh my God, what the hell were you saying then?" But, what was behind you putting all this together now? What are you hoping that readers of this book really take away?

Matthew Hussey:

I started, you know, nearly 17 years ago now, which is crazy to me. I was always used to being the young pup in the room, and I feel like I'm not the young pup anymore, I feel like.

Marie Forleo:

Now you're becoming an elder.

Matthew Hussey:

People used to go, "How do you know all this by this age?" And now people don't say that anymore. I um, but when I started out, I started helping women in their love lives by helping them be more proactive. There was a metaphor that I got known for, which was this idea of dropping the handkerchief. Because I would say to women, "Hey, listen, I know you keep saying you're old-fashioned and therefore you don't want to make the move, but actually old-fashioned was you dropping the handkerchief in front of a guy a hundred years ago. He would pick it up and bring it over to you and start a conversation with you by giving back the handkerchief. And he would feel like it was his idea. But it wasn't his idea. You chose him. So I'm going to show you how to drop the handkerchief in the modern era so that you can choose the people you want, but still let them feel like it was their idea."

It was based on this idea that if people had more choice, they would make better decisions. And I felt like so many people were getting hurt in love because they were coming from a place of scarcity and thinking, "I just have to take what I can get." So my theory was, "If I can show them how to be proactive and being proactive gets them more choice, then they'll start making better decisions about who to be with." I was right about one thing: that helping people understand that, help them take more risks, help them create more choice, that part worked. Where my hypothesis was wrong is people had more choices and were still making really bad decisions about who to give their time, their energy, their emotion to. So that kind of set me on a path to going, "What's really going on here?"

Because, you can’t, this isn't just a strategy thing, something is happening inside of people that has them drawn consistently to unhappy situations, to the kind of love that makes them miserable, to feeling anxious, to never being satisfied. So many people... There's a whole chapter in this book called Never Satisfied, which really describes the person who's either chasing someone exciting, who makes them miserable, or settling for someone who is really kind, who makes them bored out of their mind and doubt whether they are with the right person. And how do we find happiness? I could give someone something to get a result, but how did people actually find happiness in love? And, kind of the secret about this book, that's not so secret anymore, is that I was on my own journey the whole time writing it. I wrote this book as a single person. When I started writing this book, I was single, heartbroken, and in one of the lowest points of my life, and genuinely wondering, "Am I going to meet that person for myself?"

I was on stage in New York during one of those times, and like the audience... Someone stood up and asked a question and I can't... Somewhere in my answer, I basically alluded to the fact that I was single. This was in a big event in New York, with 1500 people in a theater. And I alluded to the fact that I was single. And one of the women in the audience shouted, "Why are you single?" And I laughed and I went, "Ah, that's funny. Okay." So anyway, and then another person shouted, "No, no, no, why are you single?" And then the audience just started erupting and just shouting this question at me, no one would let me move on.

Marie Forleo:

Did it feel aggressive or did it feel loving or playful or a little blend of both?

Matthew Hussey:

Oh, it felt like they demanded an answer. How can you be the person that talks about this, and you are still single? Just people were like, "I need to know. We have you here."

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Matthew Hussey:

"You can't avoid it now." And um, and… so I was writing in those phases of my life, and the final edit of this I was doing on my honeymoon. So it's like a... This... My own life has gone on this really crazy arc. This is not a book written by a person who is kind of like, happily married and now let me tell, this was like every stage that people go through, I went through while write... Is in these pages. And that's been a really interesting experience for me. Because I struggled to be satisfied in my love life. I struggled with being happy, I struggled... I was either feeling doubtful and feeling like I wasn't with the right person, or I got my heart broken, being with the wrong... Chasing the wrong person.

I think that's described so many people's situations. At a certain point you start to just think, "I'm broken. If I can't be happy here, there must be something wrong with me. There must be something fundamentally broken about me." Because you have the friend who has been married since they were 25, and they're just like, they're fine. They're happy. They're not questioning things all the time. They just found their person, they're happy, they're content. And you think, "What is going on with me?" And that's what so many people's experience is. More and more of their friends are getting paired off. They feel like they're left on the shelf. They're starting to question whether it's ever going to happen for them. And that's a scary place to be.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Matthew Hussey:

I had a woman come to me and say... Her first question, her first question to me was, "How do I kill my desire to want someone?" She didn't say, "How do I meet someone?" She said, "How do I kill my desire to want someone?" 

Marie Forleo:

Oof. Oof.

Matthew Hussey:

And she said, "If I continue wanting someone and I never find it, I'm going to be sad for the rest of my life."

Marie Forleo:

What the hell do you say in response?

Matthew Hussey:

I get goosebumps as I say it, because it's so sad. Genuinely, it breaks my heart to hear that.

Marie Forleo:

I feel tears welling up because you can feel the pain in this fellow human.

Matthew Hussey:

Yeah. No, that's a scary place to be in life, is to want something, you want something so badly and you feel like you have no control over it. And you don't know how to get it. And you don't know how you're going to live not getting it. You know, I… One of the things I did with this book, that I think a lot of people wouldn't have expected, is I wrote about a journey I have had for many years with chronic physical pain. Because there's a lot of parallels between chronic physical pain and the pain of loneliness, and the pain that people experience in their love lives, and how it's an ache that you don't know how to make go away.

I had that for many years because I developed chronic, first tinnitus, which is a ringing in my ears, but then it turned into... That stayed, which was in itself a whole... It sent me on a real journey because I would wake up in the middle of the night panicking, hoping it was gone, and then it would still be there, and it would invade every waking moment I had. But on top of that, I then would get all sorts of symptoms of dizziness and throbbing in my ear and my head and the back of my eye. Basically it was a chronic pain that never went away for me. And I did not, I got to a point where I did not know what to do. I didn't know how I was going to... I went to a therapist at one point... And it was actually the reason I got into therapy.

I didn't go to therapy to like optimize my life, "How do I take it to another level?" I was in so much pain and so unhappy that I went to see someone because I thought, "I don't know what to do anymore." And I remember going into this therapist and saying to him, "I've decided I'm going to live for everyone else because I’m not, I can't be happy anymore. I don't know how to get rid of this pain." I had done everything and nothing had moved it, the dial on it at all. I was like, "I'm never going to be happy again for as long as I have this, and I don't know how to get rid of it, so I'm just going to live for everyone else. I'm going to live for my family, I'm going to live for my team, I'm going to live for my friends. I'm just going to do everything I can to help everyone live a great life. But I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm never going to be happy again."

And he looked at me and he said, "That is Hallmark depression." He said, "Of course your depression is circumstantial. It's arising out of a physical pain, but at the end of the day, what's the difference? You’re… That's where you are right now." And that started a new path in my life of first acceptance. Because I couldn't keep waiting for the next, "What's the treatment that might do something?" It's like going on a first date. You go on a first date and it feels good and it feels exciting and you get hope, "Maybe I'm not going to be single anymore. Maybe this could be something." And then you go tell your friends. Even just the feeling of maybe it's going to get better lifts you out of a place. And that's what would happen to me. With every new treatment or whatever, I would think... Just having booked… a date and a diary with a doctor would make me go, "Okay, maybe." And then when it didn't work, it was like I would plummet even further.

And so I had to get to a place of first accepting, "Okay, this may never change. What happens if it never changes? What do I do? How do I start to find a way to live so that it doesn't feel like my life is done?" And the biggest realization I had was, "Okay, there's the physical component of my pain, which is very real, but then I have a relationship with that physical component. While I don't know how to adjust that physical component, this relationship that I have with it is a huge component of this, and maybe there are ways that I can learn to manage my relationship with this component." And then I started looking for tools everywhere I went. What are the tools to able to manage that relationship? For example, I write about these tools in the book, but one of them was... Someone said to me once, "Lose the ceremony."

I was with a coach at the time, and this was in the process of me trying to work on my relationship with my pain. And she said, "Look," because I was complaining at the time that every time I had a sip of alcohol, my ears would ring even louder and my head would ache, and my throbbing would come back and everything. It would make me feel awful. And then so many foods were doing that to me as well. And it was like increasingly more things in my life were just setting off all of my symptoms. And it got so depressing. I remember saying to her, "I can't even have this now. I can't even have this food. I can't even drink this."

And she said to me... I think I said to her, "I can never do those things again." And she said to me, "Okay, we don't know that that's true, all we know is that right now when you have a sip of wine, when you eat certain foods, it sets off all your symptoms. So these things aren't agreeing with you right now. But we don't know if that's true in a year or five or 10. So for now, let's lose the ceremony, the burning of all these things that you enjoy, and instead just say for now we're going to adjust these things to get you to a better place, and then we'll see whether anything could change from there." That led me to the second big realization, was that everything changes.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Matthew Hussey:

Everything changes. Nothing stays the same. And when I realized that about my own situation, I was like, "Oh yeah, either this pain is going to change or over time the way I view this pain is going to change or the way I experience this pain is going to change." Everything changes. And at a certain point, whether the pain changes or your relationship with it changes, they kind of end up being the same thing.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Matthew Hussey:

They amount to, "I feel more peaceful, I feel more happy." And I can keep going on these tools, if you like. But these tools began what I started teaching people who were struggling with loneliness like that woman. I would start to say to her, "Look, when you get lonely, when does it hit? When do you feel this deep sadness?" And she would say, "Well, at night when I go to bed. Okay, so what do you feel? Well, I feel scared. No, no." I was like, "What do you feel? Where do you feel it? What's going on? Well, I feel it in my stomach or I feel this, I feel that." She would start describing sensations.

I say, "Okay, what you have, that's your version of the chronic pain I'm talking about. But what's making that... That already is not pleasant. The feeling of loneliness and the pang in your stomach that it gives you-"

Marie Forleo:

The sensations of it.

Matthew Hussey:

"... is already not pleasant. But what's making it 100 times more unpleasant is all of the story that's going along with that." If a bee came and stung you today, like right now, if a bee flew into this room and stung us, the sting would hurt, but there wouldn't be a story to go with it. I wouldn't go, "I can't believe it. I didn't put on bug spray today. Why did I leave the window open? I'm such a moron. I can't ever do anything right." It would just... The bee would sting and it would suck, but the only thing that would suck about it is how much it hurts. But with chronic pain, story enters, and the story is what takes us to an unbearable amount of pain.

And for her, the story was, "I'm broken. I'm never going to meet anybody. I'm not good enough. If I never meet anyone, I'm going to be sad for the rest of my life." There was all this story that made it utterly catastrophic every single time she got the pang of loneliness. But if you remove the story from it, you're just left to treat a sensation, and to help the human feeling it, which is that... In her case, "Oh, I feel lonely right now. That's not a nice feeling for a person to feel. And if that's not a nice feeling for a person to feel, I better give myself extra love right now because that's a really hard thing for anyone to go through is that feeling of loneliness." And then you get to show up for yourself and you get to give yourself affection, and you get to give yourself compassion.

The story gets in the way of all of that, and the story leads to something else. The story leads to self-hatred and judgment and shame and regret, and all of the things that go with that. And a big part of that affection that we have for ourselves and that compassion we have for ourselves, has to come from a place of... A, in her life, for example, finding love is not easy. It's anything but easy. We have very little control over it sometimes. If you want to get in more, better shape, you can change your diet, you can work out every day. You may not get to the perfect shape you want to get to, but your shape will change. If you go on a date every day for the next six months, there is no guarantee your love life will be any different at the end of those six months.

That is maddening for people, and people get terribly unlucky in love. And then add on top of that, that we have been through things, many of us, that have made it disproportionately difficult for us to find love. We have wiring that has taken hold at a time in our life where we weren't deciding how our nervous system got wired up, but it got wired up that way anyway. And those patterns affect us for the rest of our lives. Understanding that is a root to, is root out of the self admonishment of, "I am broken. I've done so much wrong. I'm an idiot. I deserve everything that's coming to me." And gets us just into a compassionate place that it's not easy. Life isn't easy. Love is certainly not easy, and I have wiring, I didn't choose, that is still working against me, that is incredibly difficult to change. When you start from that place, it is an invitation to a level of self compassion that you may have never ever given yourself before.

Marie Forleo:

You wrote, "Exceptional relationships are not found, they're built." And that, I underlined that and highlighted it three times because that's not only been my experience, but for me when I read a line that just rings true, it's like "That's true." And I feel like what you've done in this book, so brilliantly and so beautifully, is outline these tools and some milestones to start to build exceptional relationships, especially with ourselves. And we'll talk about that a little bit more. One other thing that you wrote, "Love doesn't conquer all, compatibility does. Only through compatibility does a love story get to become a life story." Let's talk about how we can start to know whether or not we're compatible with someone. What are some of the signs that we might have to watch out for?

Matthew Hussey:

I like to think of it in terms of who's good at handling me, and who am I good at handling. I think that we focus too much on who's right, who's wrong. We're all going to be right and wrong a lot in our relationship. I get it wrong a lot. Sometimes I'm right, sometimes my wife, Audrey, is right, sometimes she's wrong. It's... In those moments, it's not about who's right or wrong, it's are we good at handling each other? And that to me is one of the truest forms of compatibility, is I have patience with the ways that you're a nightmare and you have patience with the ways that I'm a nightmare. You know what I mean?

Marie Forleo:

No, I do know what you mean. Josh and I laugh all the time, because sometimes we will make little videos or something on social and he's like, "Oh, people must say, 'Oh and must be so great to be with Marie Forleo." I'm like, "I'm a fucking nightmare." But he does know how to handle me, and I think I'm pretty good at handling him, too. And so if we even break down handling, it's like, how do you deal with this other beautiful human who has their own wiring from early childhood? You and I have talked about this before when I was on your show, but I had found so much insight in Harville and Helen getting the love you want, and just this notion that you often, many of us, pick people who are the exact opposite. We will spark each other from that place. And that's where the challenge is. And also that's where the miracle of healing comes. And I love that notion of are they good at handling me? Am I good at handling them?

Matthew Hussey:

That's why it could be a real advantage to be with someone who's been punched in the face in life. Because when you have... There is this notion, especially in... For a lot of people who do some kind of self-development, that now that I've done all this self-development, it's really hard to meet someone. And the subtext is always, "Because I'm now so awesome. And no one else has done this work." And I always found that to be... I get where they're coming from.

Marie Forleo:

Sure.

Matthew Hussey:

I understand where they're coming from. And there may be a grain of truth to it. But I could make the opposite side of the argument, which is to say that the greatest work I've done on myself has been through being humbled in life, all sorts of challenges, whether it's heartbreak, whether it's chronic pain, and having to surrender to that and figure out a way through that, when before that, I felt invincible. Family issues. All these things have humbled me. And then the most humbling thing, my God, is trying to change anything about yourself.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Matthew Hussey:

Trying to change something that you've always done. You've always been like... It's like someone celebrating you for being ambitious? It's like you are ambitious. You don't deserve any celebration for that.

Marie Forleo:

Absolutely not.

Matthew Hussey:

That's like for you, that's your superpower. It's not a...

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Matthew Hussey:

That's what you do. But like, and that was the same for me too. It's like, I don't know. That to me is not the hard part, the hard part is standing still. The hard part is getting in touch with my emotions. The hard part is being truly vulnerable there. Those are things that have been really difficult. Or anxiety, I've struggled a lot with anxiety in my life, long before I even knew that it was anxiety. I just have really battled with that in my life and it's so-

Matthew Hussey:

... have really battled with that in my life. And it's so hard, and it remains so hard. When you try to take on the things that are really hard for you, it's so humbling that you then can't help but realize that it's as hard for everyone else to change the things that they are struggling with, the things that you might on a careless day call crazy. And that's what we're so good at in dating... ‘Oh my God, that person is crazy, you can't imagine what they do. You can't imagine how many texts they left mem or how many…’ We're all crazy.

Marie Forleo:

Absolutely.

Matthew Hussey:

And our version of crazy isn't any easier to change for someone else than it is for us, or their version of crazy isn't any easier for them to change then ours is for us. So, I've always found that the more I've been humbled in life, the more I am able to view other people in the world with this expanded level of compassion. And I think that gives you more options, I don't think that gives you less options. I think it allows you to look lovingly at the way that other people are, and to go, God, they're struggling with that thing, that's just like that thing that I struggle with in a different way, or in a different part of life, and especially if you know that what helped you get through it was someone offering you compassion, or safety. How many men are going around calling women crazy, that they have contributed to why they feel so unsafe, right?

Marie Forleo:

Endless amounts.

Matthew Hussey:

Do you… how many women would suddenly "that crazy" would evaporate and heal, if they were around someone who actually made them feel safe? So, I think that when we realize that, and this isn't me saying go find someone who brings you misery and try to change them, but I think when we realize that we're dealing with human beings, and that they're fallible, and that they're struggling in their own ways, and that if we bring compassion and love and safety to them, we offer an environment for them to heal, we'll find more right people than we ever had before when we were looking for some version of, you know, perfection. Which, by the way, is something we do when we're still judging ourselves.

When we are still hating on ourselves and trying not to tip our hand about all the things that we don't like about ourselves, we go looking for something other than ourselves, we go looking for a kind of perfection. It's like, it's no different from if you don't think you are cool at school, the last thing you want to do is hang around with the uncool kids. Because you're like, if I hang around with you, I'm going to get found out, I can't be anywhere near you. I need to hang around with the cool kids, and blend in over here. And I think we do that in love too, and I think the more we accept ourselves, we stop seeing everyone as gross. We stop seeing everyone as disgusting. And there's only five people in the world that are attractive, and I just wish I could get one of those five. You start seeing so many more people as interesting and-

Marie Forleo:

Possible.

Matthew Hussey:

Possible, exactly.

Marie Forleo:

On our team, someone found this quote on Instagram, I think it says so much, "All I want is the love of a healthy relationship and the sex of a toxic one." So, let's talk about chemistry.

Matthew Hussey:

That's really funny.

Marie Forleo:

If we find someone who treats us well but doesn't excite us, should we force ourselves to stick it out? And I know that's a very general question. But later on in our conversation, I have so many questions that have come in from social, and I was like, oh my God, having Matthew on the show, and this was one of the flavors of one of the questions.

Matthew Hussey:

Look, let me start this question backwards. I think everyone should take it upon themselves, if they want a great sex life, to learn how to go into the bedroom and role play, and bring out a different side of themselves so that you feel free in that department because... And this is a very backwards way of answering. I've actually never answered this question this way before. But I just think that it's our responsibility, men and women, I don't care how nice you are in the rest of life, it's like we all have a responsibility to find the freedom within ourselves to go into the bedroom with someone and play, and role play, and figure out who they are and what they like, and enjoy being that for them at times, and enjoy them being that for you, whatever it is is your thing. That role play is really important, but we call it role play for a reason, right?

I am playing a character here, I'm playing a dynamic here, that I wouldn't wish for in my worst nightmares in real life, this is not a dynamic I would want in my life, but in the bedroom between these four walls, just between you and me, this is a dynamic that's really, really fun to act out. Like that’s, there is something in that that I think is really important for us all to recognize, because you can be all of those wonderful traits in your relationship, you don't have to stop being the kind, gentle person you are, you don't have to... But understanding that sex is more than lovemaking, it's play.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah, that's the key word, that-

Matthew Hussey:

It's really important.

Marie Forleo:

... that play element I think is vital, especially for those... Josh and I have been together now 21 years, you know what I mean? And so, anyone listening, if you're interested in a long-term lasting love, that play aspect, everything. It's everything.

Matthew Hussey:

And it's the one thing, we often think that sex is this thing that it loses its-

Marie Forleo:

Spark.

Matthew Hussey:

... potency, yeah.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Matthew Hussey:

In a long-term relationship. But one of the things you can say for a long-term relationship is if you stay playful together and you keep exploring each other, the benefit you have is the backdrop of, we're really comfortable with each other, so we can play in these ways without feeling self-conscious or embarrassed. And if you are terribly self-conscious or embarrassed in your relationship, then you're not talking enough, you're not breaking down enough barriers together. You've kind of like shut away a part of you in a box somewhere, and you're no longer communicating the thoughts you're having.

Marie Forleo:

Emily Morse, a friend, Sex with Emily, I love her, communication is lubrication. Especially in that department, it's a key point.

Matthew Hussey:

But to your point, that's really important. And by the way, we should take a leadership role in creating that kind of sex life with anybody, instead of expecting someone to come along and read our minds, going into a new relationship with a sense of, I'm going to help lead the way and create this very free culture in our sex life together, is really important, because when you create that environment, it's easier for someone else to-

Marie Forleo:

Step in.

Matthew Hussey:

... take that invitation instead of, expecting you've got to create it and this has to be the crazy sex that I'm hoping for, but you better lead the way. So, there's that. Now, the question of I'm dating someone and right now I don't know if there's chemistry, or early on, even when you're meeting people on apps, should I go for people who aren't my type, and things like that? Chemistry is wildly important for a relationship, but I think that we over judge who we might have chemistry with when we're in this state, especially dating apps, unfortunately. They make us think that we know our attraction based on seeing someone in pictures, and it's just not true. The reason why work romances, so many of them happen the way they do, is because two people got time feeling each other out, and seeing who the other one was.

And over time it's like something evolved that may not have been there on day one. How many people have had the experience of meeting someone on a date and having chemistry and then trying to show pictures of them to a friend, and the friend's like, I don't really get it. Right?

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Matthew Hussey:

It's not just because you have different tastes than your friend, it's that you were on the date, you could feel their energy, you could feel the way they were emoting, and all of that plays a part. So, I think that we're overly judgmental at the very front end. I think if you are on date three with someone and there's no hint of anything, then of course that's a problem, don't waste your time on, getting on date 10 and hoping something's going to change. But how many people are never even getting to that point with people because they've over judged, or they've told themselves that chemistry for them has to come in one very specific version.

Marie Forleo:

Package. Yes.

Matthew Hussey:

And a lot of that is ego as well. Because sexual attraction you can have with people you never expected, but they may not always be the people that you take home, and your family goes, they're exactly what I thought of for you. Your family might go... If you take home someone who's super objectively just symmetrical, and you take them home to your family, and they're charming and charismatic, your family's probably going to pat you on the back, and go, oh, well done you. But if you take someone home that you have amazing chemistry with, but they don't look the part, they may not say that, and that might get… your ego might flare up now.

Because now, instead of listening to what you actually feel, which is that actually, there's something really interesting here, your ego is kicking in and telling you, oh, but they're not the people that will impress my friends, or they're not the people my family is going to think is amazing, and that's a big deal. And then the last thing I'll say about this because it's very, very important, is that the thing that so many people are calling chemistry is trauma.

Marie Forleo:

Wait, say more. That's a big one.

Matthew Hussey:

It's like calling the feeling that MDMA, or cocaine, or heroin gives you happiness.

Marie Forleo:

Right.

Matthew Hussey:

It's a feeling.

Marie Forleo:

Might be familiar.

Matthew Hussey:

Right. And it might give you a certain...

Marie Forleo:

Surge.

Matthew Hussey:

... but it's not happiness. And sometimes our nervous system is wired for chaos, it's wired for push-pull, it's wired for someone who's inconsistent, it makes us value someone who's inconsistent. Even if you don't have trauma from the past, even just the economics of our brain, and the way we value things can work against us. You know what it is? It's diamonds and air. Diamonds and air. When you… If I take away diamonds from you, you'll be fine. If we take away the air-

Marie Forleo:

Not so much.

Matthew Hussey:

... you'll last a couple of minutes. But when people think of valuable, they think diamonds, they don't think air. We take air for granted. And that happens in relationships all the time, where the person who makes themselves scarce suddenly becomes diamonds. Because we go, oh, they're rare, they're hard to get, they're not available. And the economics of our brain goes, if they're not available, they must be more valuable.

Marie Forleo:

Must be more special.

Matthew Hussey:

Complete non sequitur, by the way.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Matthew Hussey:

Complete non sequitur. They could just not be ready for a relationship. They could be someone who's got a ton of stuff on at work, they could be someone who's disorganized, they could be someone who's sleeping with 20 different people. It doesn't make them more valuable, but in our brain we go, oh, they're not abundant, so they must be... They're scarce, therefore they're rare. So, there's even that economics going on. But for so many people, chemistry is this... What they think of as chemistry is this familiar nervous system activation that is happening the moment someone doesn't text them for five days, makes them feel completely unsure of themselves, and then sends them a message five days later that says, what's going on? That might be the same thing, if someone's a child, and a parent ignored them for five days, and it made them feel like, I'm freaked out, where's my parent? Am I going to be okay? Am I going to survive? It's all real stuff at that point. And then, the parent on day six brings you a present, or does something for you, and you go...

‘Okay, oh my God, they have been thinking about me, they got me a present, they love me, and so on.’ But if you then apply that to an adult relationship, someone doesn't text you for five days, they don't love me, or they don't care about me, they don't like me as much as I like them, oh my God, I'm going to die, you don't know what to do with yourself, you can't eat, you can't sleep, and then on day six they say, what are you up to tonight? You go, ‘oh my god. Oh, aren't they amazing? This person is incredible.’

Marie Forleo:

You know what comes to my mind? It's like, "Flying to the danger zone..." That's the song that's playing in my head as I'm hearing this play out.

Matthew Hussey:

Yeah.

Marie Forleo:

So, this actually brings me to the next question. Let's say someone just had the most amazing first date, and they're thinking, oh my goodness, this could be my person, you caution people about rushing in to create a love story before that person demonstrates their intention. Let's talk a little bit about that, because-

Matthew Hussey:

Well, let's go a step further, what value does... You just had a great date with someone, best date ever...

Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

Matthew Hussey:

Okay. You have learned nothing about this person's character. Someone giving you a great date is not an indication of their character, it's an indication of their impact.

Marie Forleo:

Say more.

Matthew Hussey:

Impact is, you can know how to create impact, it doesn't speak to how great of a friend you would be to someone... I've had guys that I meet, on day one, I'm like, we are going to be best friends in the world. I love this guy. I'm so enamored, I go home with a man crush.

Marie Forleo:

Yes. 100%.

Matthew Hussey:

Like, this guy's really... I've done it before, when me and Audrey, my wife, are together, and I'm like, that guy's really great, isn't he? And she's like, I don't know about this guy. And I'm like, were you not seeing what I was seeing? And I can feel myself becoming enamored with someone.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah, it's like a little crush.

Matthew Hussey:

Yeah. And then three months later I'm like, we're not friends. This person's... There's a great line in Talented Mr. Ripley, where Matt Damon is crushed that Jude Law, who he thought was his new best friend, is now just off playing with someone else. And Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law's wife in the movie, says to him, "It feels so great when Dickie's attention is on you, it's like the sun is shining on you, and then it moves on, and it's very, very cold." What that says is not Jude Law is such a great friend to invest in, and he's got such great character, and he has all the right stuff that makes him someone you would want in your life, it says that he was someone who had great impact in that moment.

And we have to question, why is it this kind of person is having such impact with me? What am I potentially overvaluing here? And what am I undervaluing? How could you possibly know what this person's level of kindness is, or whether they would show up for you if there was a difficult time, or what they're like when nobody's looking, or what... You don't know any of these things, character can only be measured over time, it cannot be something that you measure on a first date. So, you have to give yourself time before you decide to conjure some story out of an experience you've had. Again, it is a complete non sequitur, and that is one of the great routes for anyone.

It's a very common thing for people to say, I get obsessed with people too quickly, and then I become a different person. You have to start by saying, what are the things that I really need? Forget what's sexy, or charismatic, or attractive, or whatever, what do I need? And a great way to know what you need is to go back into your history, and go, even with the people I desperately wanted, what did I not receive from them? That by not... Well, assuming I was in a relationship at some point with a person like that. What did I desperately need from them that I didn't get?

And how miserable did that make me? If I didn't get empathy, or if I didn't feel seen by them, or if I didn't get their loyalty, or if I didn't get their presence, or if I was never made to feel safe by that person, then anyone who has had that experience knows that even though while you were in it, you were trying to desperately hold onto them, because you thought you'd die if they left, you were actually in hell while you were in it.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Matthew Hussey:

And when you realize that, you realize that no one can be attractive enough to make you give up on something that's fundamental to your peace and your happiness. And when you know that, then you start waiting before you've observed the traits, the qualities, the character that will bring you peace and happiness, before you start writing the love story of who this person is to you.

Marie Forleo:

Let's talk red flags, because I think this is so important. Sometimes we don't see them, or maybe we don't want to see them until the relationship is over, and I think this dovetails nicely with what we're talking about. You say in the book, "It's like watching a horror movie where everyone else sees what's going on, but we're the oblivious victim." So, are there any kind of general red flags that we should be on the lookout for? And I love that you have this amber lights approach.

Matthew Hussey:

Yeah. I came up with this amber lights idea because the red flag rhetoric is one that, it goes a little far, because at a certain point you go just everyone's a red flag, there's no one left, it's just red flags.

Marie Forleo:

Red flag, red flag... Yeah. We do that. I do that in the context of business, to be quite honest with you. Like potential folks that we're going to collab with, freelancers, or even employees, the most dangerous, it's like, am I noticing any red flags?

Matthew Hussey:

Yeah. And by the way, we should pay attention to those because there are legitimate red flags, but my feeling is, when you think something might be a red flag, you often don't know, unless it's something so egregious that you go, I can't have this... Anyone who's capable of that, I can't have them in my life, my business, my relationship, whatever. But most things don't tend to fall into that category, most things fall into the category of, I'm not sure about that thing you just did.

Marie Forleo:

We go put it in the amber box.

Matthew Hussey:

We then put, it becomes an amber light, and an amber light is an invitation to a conversation. A big theme of this book is how much trouble we get ourselves in because we have an aversion to hard conversations. Your life will get better in general, not just in your love life, in proportion to the number of hard conversations you're willing to have.

Marie Forleo:

Amen.

Matthew Hussey:

So, when you see something you don't like, you have to train yourself to have the bravery to point it out, albeit in an elegant way, and I talk about ways to do that.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah, and I wanna unpack some of those.

Matthew Hussey:

There's definitely a wrong way to do it. But that conversation then, someone is either going to acknowledge what you've said and help you understand more about them, or correct it for next time, or they're going to ignore it, or gaslight you about there even being a problem, or be incapable of apologizing, or... At which point you go, oh, it's gone from an amber light to a complete stop sign.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

Matthew Hussey:

Or it turns from an amber light into a green light, if you have a conversation with someone and it's very productive. Which it often is. And that is leadership, that's you are not just now responding to the culture of someone else, you're creating culture. And that's what all great leaders do. We don't talk about this enough in the context of people's love lives, but my God, is it relevant in our love lives? Mitch Albom said that, "If you don't like the culture, you have to be brave enough to create your own." And there are many people who don't like the dating culture out there right now, why do people do this? Why do men do that? Why do women do this? But they're not creating culture, they're complaining a lot about culture, but you can't change culture, but in your life, in your bubble, in the people you let in, and the dynamics you create, you can create culture, just as you have in your business, right? That's what makes you great, is that you create... You're not just creating something that's outward facing, you are also creating a culture inside.

And one of the most, I think one of the most rewarding things about starting a company, is that you get to say there's a culture that's going to have my thumbprint on it, that's uniquely ours, that's not going to be quite like the culture of anything else out there. That's a not talked about enough thing I think in business, is that how exciting that is? It's a very creative thing-

Marie Forleo:

It is.

Matthew Hussey:

... that you get to do. And you get to do that in your love life, too. You get to be the person that someone sends you a text, and you are feeling like... Maybe you say it's a red flag because this person always texts and never calls, or it never seems to progress past the texting. Well, the kind of protective, defensive way of dealing with that is just to bail, or you can call someone out on it, or the next time that person texts you, you could leave them a three-minute voice note, or a 60-second voice note. And they say, what are you up to today? And you pick up the phone and you just speak into it for 60 seconds.

You say, well, I'm actually doing this with my sister right now, and blah, blah, blah, and I was thinking of you today because... And that person receives a voice note from you now, and it is an invitation to them to level up, to a greater level of intimacy, albeit in just one step. That's creating culture, and it's a leader's world to do that. You can't just go into dating as a follower.

Marie Forleo:

I think one of the things... You're genius at so many things. And one of the things that is incredible are your scripts. Because I think, and I'm curious to hear your perspective on this, I think a lot of people shy away, especially in their love life, but I think this broadens out to their entire lives, will back away from hard conversations, at least one reason is because they don't know the right words, and they're afraid. And if you are in a long-term relationship, you're like, if I say it a lot, it's all going to erupt... And you know what I mean? Then you're afraid of what's going to come back. So, your scripts are just amazing.

I love that you said this in the book, "When people come to me with their problems, so many of their questions follow this pattern, Matthew, he did this and I didn't like it, do you think it can get better? But when I ask the obvious follow-up, have you talked to him about it? Their answer is almost always no. I should be the second person they've talked to about the problem. A big part of the problem is that I'm usually the first." So, do you think it's, for many of us, because we don't have instruction in this. My friends in my personal life, some of my friends are like, you always just come out and say when you're pissed, or I'm upset... I'm like, I don't like to hold grudges, and if shit goes down, that's not cool with me, I just pick up a phone.

I'm like, this didn't feel so good, can we talk about this? This was my interpretation, what was your take? And then I'm kind of like a duck. You know what I mean? Then I go like this, and then I'm done. And I don't know where that comes from, but I think it's because I care so deeply about others, and I don't like bullshit or drama. But most of us don't have instruction on that, and so I think one of the great things that you do is help us. So, I actually want to start with some hypotheticals, but can we talk about how your beautiful, amazing wife, Audrey, actually did this when you all first met each other?

Matthew Hussey:

Oh, I'm so sick of talking about-

Marie Forleo:

I don't care.

Matthew Hussey:

...everything this woman did right.

Marie Forleo:

Yes. Well, we're going to go there because I think it's a perfect example.

Matthew Hussey:

No, she's funny. I've been, for 15, 16 years before I met Audrey, a big part of my world was giving people practical examples of things they could say, that I really felt like it didn't matter to me whether people use them verbatim, what I wanted people to understand is the structure. Language matters. And even in the example you just gave, there were lots of things that work about that. It didn't make me feel good, that's not you telling someone else they're bad, it's that something that happened, or something you did didn't make me feel good, right? Even that is not something that's immediately going to put someone's defense up. Can we talk about it? Nothing about that that will make them raise their guard. Can you tell me about it from your perspective? Now I'm listening to you. So, even in the structure that you just outlined, I can spot three or four things that you are doing there that structurally are going to create much better results than 99% of people get.

And so, I was always by the structure of language. But then Audrey came along, and I feel like half the scripts I say these days are just from her, and what she did to me.

Marie Forleo:

Yay Audrey, who's here.

Matthew Hussey:

I'll give you one that was a great example of this, because when I went back to Los Angeles, after having met Audrey, I then started to drift. And we weren't in a relationship, we were just two people that liked each other, and we would text, and then gradually my texts became more and more sparse, and eventually, I think it had been a couple of weeks... It had already been a bit sparse, and then it had been a couple of weeks since we'd spoken. And I sent her a message that said either, I can't remember which, it either said, I miss you, or I'm thinking of you. And she sent me a message back that said, hey, I hope you're well, to be honest, when you send me things like that, I don't really know what to say. Which is a great start.

Marie Forleo:

Honest. Yeah.

Matthew Hussey:

I don't really know what to say. ‘I'm confused’ is what that line says. She said, we haven't really been that close for a while now, and rightly or wrongly, this message comes across as a bid for attention. That stung, firstly, because it was true, but if you look at that, it's, when she says, we haven't been that close for a while now, what that's pointing out is that the intimacy of what I just sent, or the affection of what I just sent, is completely out of sync with the temperature of our dynamic. Things have cooled down because you've not really been messaging, or being that responsive, so things have cooled down, and now you're sending me a hot message. I don't really know what to say to that because we haven't been that close for a while now.

Then, when she said rightly or wrongly, this message comes across as a bid for attention, even that is a very powerful language structure because what you're saying is, I might be wrong. In which case, it's almost like the subtext is, you are more than welcome to prove me wrong. But rightly or wrongly, it comes across as a bid for attention. She didn't say, you're being an attention seeker, who's non-committal, and blah, blah, blah, full of shit... She said, it comes across as a bid for attention. I might be wrong, but that's how it's reading. And when you send that, for me, immediately I was like... I caught myself, and not everyone will be this self-aware. Or some people will catch themselves and then double down, and try and like win you over in that moment, which is something you have to be very careful of when you set a standard. Is that if someone tries 10 times harder to win you over right now, you can't get too excited about that.

Because that might be, for them, just a way of bringing you back in. It's about consistency. It's almost like you have to be able to say to someone, it doesn't matter what you do today, if you want to pick up the phone and call me, hey, let's have a nice conversation, it'd be nice to chat, but there's nothing you can do today that is going to suddenly make me go back to the temperature we had three weeks ago, or two months ago, or six months ago... That's a temperature I'm going to come back to slowly because of your consistency from this point forward. It's very, very important. If someone can just come back, and rush you with a bunch of affection, and then you suddenly come straight back up to where you were before, then I know, oh, that's all it-

Marie Forleo:

That's all it takes.

Matthew Hussey:

That's all it takes. And by the way, the other thing you can't do is, if I went cold on her, if I was like... Because this is what actually happened. And I think this is really, really important for people, I did not go, oh my God, I'm such an idiot, let's be together. I went, oh, I am being an attention seeker right now, I don't have any more to give, so I'm going to back off.

Marie Forleo:

Did you actually text that, or that's what was going through your head? How did you respond?

Matthew Hussey:

I don't remember what I texted. But I think it probably wasn't a very exciting response, I think it was just, there was some version of, I got it.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

Matthew Hussey:

And I genuinely backed off. And I also learned, oh, I can't do that with this person. And again, there was nothing malicious in it, but it's just, right now I was just doing something for me because I was feeling lonely, or I wanted a hit of connection, but I can't do that here. She wants something different than I am providing.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Matthew Hussey:

What she didn't do is on day three of me, leaving it alone, go, so, what are you up to today? Because that's the other mistake people make, is, oh, it didn't work, you backed off...

Matthew Hussey:

It didn't work. You backed off. I miss you, so I'm now going to text you. All someone learns there is that oh, this was not a standard you had, it was a tactic. There's a huge, giant difference between standards and tactics. Tactic is something I do to get a result, and if it doesn't work, I just change it. Because there's no real substance to it, it's just whatever works. A standard is something you uphold even if it doesn't get the result, because it's who you are and it's what you expect.

Marie Forleo:

Juicy. I hate saying that word, I just hate that word. But that's the word that came to my mind.

Matthew Hussey:

If I can make you say a word you hate, I'll be happy.

Marie Forleo:

Yes, you just did. Let's see if we can get some more. I'm going to give you a few hypotheticals, and see if anything comes to mind. You catch the person you're dating in a lie. They told you they were not interested in seeing other people, but you see that dating profile, it is still active on the apps. What do you say?

Matthew Hussey:

I think just pointing out the discrepancy between what you're seeing and what they've said is really valuable. Like, "Hey, it's made me feel strange." Strange is a good word.

Marie Forleo:

Strange is a good word, isn't it?

Matthew Hussey:

Yeah, because it sounds ambiguous.

Marie Forleo:

It has a neutrality to it, in a way. It's not accusatory, and most of us can associate with it. Keep going.

Matthew Hussey:

Yeah, exactly. It's made me feel strange. You... I know you said you weren't interested in seeing other people, but you're still active on the dating app. It's made me feel strange, and it's made me feel a little unsafe because I've been... I am very conscious about who I give my energy to, and I've been giving like some of my best energy to you on the basis that we're actually giving this a try.

That doesn't mean we have to know what it is right now or whatever, but I'm going on the basis that we're actually seeing what this could be, and I'm taking you at your word that you aren't interested in seeing other people. If that's not the case, that's okay, it's not a crime for you to want to see other people. But I really need to know that so I can reevaluate what I'm giving to this situation.

That is… what I like about that is it's all you, it's all your power. There's nothing about it that's saying to someone like, "I'm waiting for you," or "I don't know what to do about this," or "I'll take whatever scraps you give me." What it's saying is, what I have to offer is very valuable, so I'm very careful about who I give it to, and I need to know if... Firstly, it's okay if you want to see other people. That's valuable, because you're not judging them.

Marie Forleo:

Correct.

Matthew Hussey:

You're not turning them into a villain. You're saying, "It's totally okay. If you want to see other people, I respect that. But I need to know if that's what you're really feeling, because it would make me reevaluate what I'm giving to this and the energy I'm putting into it." That I think would be a powerful frame to come from.

Marie Forleo:

I love that. Okay, are you ready to keep going? I got lots of these, because I got lots of them.

Matthew Hussey:

Oh, okay.

Marie Forleo:

Okay. Let's say you've been casually seeing someone, but you don't know where you both stand. It's like that exclusivity kind of convo. How would you start opening that up to ask?

Matthew Hussey:

There's a number of ways you could do that. One of them is look, I am having such a great time with you, so much fun, so much fun every time we're together. But I realized recently, when people ask me out, I don't know what to tell them. I don't have an answer, because we haven't talked about what this is, or whether we're really giving this a try to see what it is. Then let it hang out there, let them contribute to that.

Marie Forleo:

That's big.

Matthew Hussey:

What do you think?

Marie Forleo:

Ooh.

Matthew Hussey:

Where's your head with that, or where's your head at with things? You're inviting them to the conversation, and you're doing it from a point of view of I'm not going to be on the market forever. I realize if someone asked me out tomorrow, I wouldn't know what to say to them.

So again, you're not coming as a person asking for something, you're coming as a person saying, "I want to make sure I'm steering traffic. I'm directing traffic in the right way." And uh, and also, a nice thing to do is to say, "I feel like we have something that's been so much fun. I feel like we have something that's kinda cool. I know I wouldn't want to do anything that would harm that if it's leading somewhere where we both want to see where it really goes. So, you know, I feel like it's worth us having that conversation, because I don't want to go into the rest of my love life doing anything or inviting in anyone that would harm this if this is going somewhere."

Marie Forleo:

It's so good.

Matthew Hussey:

Also, be intentional about the fact that you are actually... You can even do it at the point of intimacy. If someone's trying to sleep with you, you can say to someone... Always bring the warmth, and the playfulness and the sexiness. Don't-

Marie Forleo:

You don't have to tighten up, and you don't have to put up an armor. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Matthew Hussey:

No, and that shouldn't go out... It shouldn't be like all of the fun's over right now, because now we're having a hard conversation. If someone's trying to have sex with you, and you in your mind you're like, I don't want to do this if it's just a bit of fun, then say to someone. Obviously this between you and me would be amazing. That much is clear. But I also know for me, I'm not in a place in my life where I want to do that with someone where it's not actually... Because we really like each other, and we want to see where it's going.

If you know you don't want to see where it's going? Let's not do this, we don't have to. But that's important to me, because I'm being really intentional in my love life. That's a powerful place to come from, and there's no sucking the air out of the room by doing that. You're still nodding to the fact that obviously you're two very sexy people who will have a great time if and when they do this.

Marie Forleo:

Yes. Now I love that, and I feel like they're such important life skills.

Matthew Hussey:

They're really important. They're really important.

Marie Forleo:

Ooh, every conversation with anyone that you work with. Any conversation, you're traveling, you're out in the world. Being able to broach into hard conversations from a space of curiosity, a space of invitation, a space of keeping that playfulness.

Matthew Hussey:

Good words. I like those words.

Marie Forleo:

Really good.

Matthew Hussey:

I want to acknowledge that they are. We call them hard conversations for a reason, because they require a little bravery. They get easier, they do get easier. The more you are willing to embrace the kinds of conversations that maybe you used to avoid, the more you will build that muscle and it won't feel like you're trying to lift this weight of anxiety every time. It gets easier, but in the beginning you have to be brave. The foundation for that bravery is being very clear about what's interesting to you and what's not interesting to you.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Matthew Hussey:

You have to go in with a real sense of that. Otherwise, any pitch someone makes you, you're liable to-

Marie Forleo:

Fall for it, yeah.

Matthew Hussey:

... buy it, because you just don't know. You haven't really decided ahead of time what's interesting and what's not. It's like how many TV shows do I get pitched every year that want me to go and do a TV show?

Marie Forleo:

Oh, I was just thinking about that. I have never been a part of Bachelor Nation until they did the Golden Bachelor, which I just found fascinating. Then Josh and I, we just watched this last one, and literally we walk around our house going, "How are you feeling now?" Because we're mimicking the language of... “Where are we at today, and what's going on with you?” But I was like, "Oh my god." As you were talking and I'm listening to you, I can't even imagine the pitches that come across your desk.

Matthew Hussey:

There's so many. I have to be clear about what's interesting to me and what's not, because otherwise it's just oh, someone wants me to be on TV, and it's like, "Well, let's try and find a way to think that this is okay." But meanwhile, nine out of 10 things that come across my desk are horrible. They're horrible, and I have to know very clearly what's interesting to me before the fact. Because otherwise-

Marie Forleo:

It can get too seductive.

Matthew Hussey:

... some of those pitches, you start finding a way to like them-

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Matthew Hussey:

... even though they go completely against your character, or what your tastes-

Marie Forleo:

Your life plan, your priorities.

Matthew Hussey:

That's exactly right.

Marie Forleo:

All those things. I do want to hit one thing before I want to go to not only I think what was probably the most powerful thing for me in your book, and I've never thought I'd like this topic. You were the first one to really go like, "Whoa, this is the first time I resonate with this." But let's say someone does have the courage to have one of these hard conversations, and of course we're going to set them up. Their scripts, there's all that good stuff.

There's that chance that things are not going to go that well, that the person could for whatever reason... Even if you had great delivery, even if you came with that playful energy, even if you were clear, your heart's in the right place, there were all the invitations, people are people, they're going to react the way they do. What should you do if it just takes a left turn and you're like, "That did not go as I hoped?"

Matthew Hussey:

It takes a left turn, because you feel like you blew the conversation, or because it just did not go the way you'd hoped it went?

Marie Forleo:

That, it's the latter.

Matthew Hussey:

The second one. You have to take responsibility for the fact that you've actually done something. You've stated your needs, and that someone has revealed themselves to be the wrong person to meet those needs. You have to start... There's always people who go away from my events and they'll say, "I went and had a standards conversation with the guy and he broke up with me."

Marie Forleo:

We're like, "Yay." That's what I'm doing in my head, cheering.

Matthew Hussey:

Right, but they're thinking it went wrong.

Marie Forleo:

Right, like, "I did it wrong, or you sold me the wrong freaking script." I wish I had… yes.

Matthew Hussey:

Yeah. Or I wish I hadn't, because I'd still have them in my life right now or whatever, and it's like-

Marie Forleo:

Yeah, yeah.

Matthew Hussey:

No. What you were hanging onto wasn't real, you just learned exactly what it actually was, and I'd like you to get out of this rhetoric of he broke up with me. Because you decided today was the day that you wanted to go and have that conversation. You didn't decide it six months ago, or a year ago, you decided today was the day. Why did you decide today was the day? It was because some part of you... Yes, you had high hopes for it going well, but some part of you was also ready for it not to go well. Some part of you had decided that no matter what, you were going to get an answer.

So, stop this he broke up with me. You broke up with him. You did it under the guise of a standards conversation, but you broke up with him. Actually, if you start taking some ownership for that? You'll start to become much more powerful in your own mind. Then I went and asked for something, and then they dumped me. No, today, you went and you ended the relationship by asking for something someone couldn't give you. That's it.

Marie Forleo:

That's it.

Matthew Hussey:

You didn't have to ask today, so why did you ask today? Because some part of you was ready for the consequences of that.

Marie Forleo:

You wrote, and I love this, you lose nothing by communicating. The right relationship is one where things get better when you communicate, if your relationship gets worse off when one of you speaks your truth, you're in the wrong relationship. I cannot agree more. Josh and I certainly don't have perfect communication, and sometimes, man, I fuck it up. We both do, you know what I mean?

Matthew Hussey:

Yeah.

Marie Forleo:

Where it goes off the rails, and even though we have pretty good tools, forget to use them sometimes. But we always come back, and it gets deeper, and stronger. It was like, "Okay, great. Now I understand more of who he is and more of what's going on, and more of how to be a better partner." Now he understands more of my layers and all that stuff. It doesn't have to look cute, and it doesn't have to go perfectly. But if you can't be real and have an honest conversation about really tough stuff and the relationship doesn't get stronger? That's a wrong relationship.

Matthew Hussey:

It's the wrong relationship. It's a hostage situation.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah, it really is. It really is.

Matthew Hussey:

It is. Because you're saying it only works as long as I don't voice the things that are really on my mind.

Marie Forleo:

It's like you're walking on eggshells. That, for anyone who's experienced any version of that in their early childhood, the worst. Which I have. The worst programming, to feel like you have to walk on eggshells.

Matthew Hussey:

It's the worst.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

Matthew Hussey:

There's no law that says that if you didn't say it perfectly, you can't go back and say, Hey, yesterday I feel like I was a bit emotional. I said it in this way. What I really meant was this, and I stand by this thing that I said that is really important to me, and that is something that needs to change. But yesterday when I brought it to you, I brought it to you in a way that wasn't productive, and I'm sorry for that. There's no law stopping you from doing that.

If you do that and someone says to you, "You know what? No, no. Now that you've done that yesterday and you said it in that way, that's it." What? What kind of relationship is that? You can go back, and you can sculpt the thing you said over and over and over. By the way, when you do that? The right person looks at that and says, "Wow, that's gorgeous." There's humility.

They can look at themselves and go, "That was the part of the conversation I didn't do very well, but this is the part that is still important to me and I want to separate the two." That's a very attractive, grownup thing to be able to do, and people respect the humility it takes to be able to do that. The right people do, anyway.

Marie Forleo:

They definitely do. Okay, so one thing before I thank you bigly for something that you wrote that really made an impact. Something that made me laugh my buns off. I need to find it in my notes. Oh my god, this made me laugh because feelings. You write, following my feelings all the time is usually a bad idea. If I did that, I'd probably go to the gym seven more times in my entire life.

Sometimes people are like, "Marie, but I'm not feeling this." I'm like, "Fuck your feelings, dude." You got to make your commitment stronger than your moods. I'm a very intuitive emotional being, I cry on the show all the time. You know what I mean? Feelings are super important. But that made me laugh so hard, because, you know, feelings can get us in trouble. If you want to unpack that for a moment, and I thought you had a really great question to ask. Instead of following feelings, I'll tee it up for you. Is this a thing that once it's over makes me say, "I'm really glad that I did that?" Or on the flip side, “I'm really glad that I didn't do that.”

Matthew Hussey:

Yeah. I had a woman on my retreat who... She said that she basically had a pattern of going home with guys on the first date and having sex. She said, "It just left me feeling awful at the end of it every time." I would wake up and I would feel bad, and I wouldn't like the version of myself that had done that, I felt weird. If it didn't go anywhere, it then really affected my self-esteem.

But what she felt at the end of the date was, "I like this guy, I want to please him, I'm also horny, let's go home together." That's what she felt, those were her feelings in the moment. But it was a thing that every time she did it, afterwards she didn't say, "I'm so glad I did that." She said, "Why did I do that again?" And, you have to pay attention to those things, because your feelings are not always valid.

Marie Forleo:

They're not, and you should not always trust them. I've gotten myself... No, I've actually been pretty good with this. But there's definitely times in my life where I feel like my Italian nature comes out. When people piss me off I'm like, "Whoa." It's like, "A, keep me away from keyboards, phones." Do you know what I mean? Because mama's going to go off. At the few times when I didn't have that self-restraint, I was like, "God damn it." Because I can't take back that text, or I can't take back that email.

Matthew Hussey:

That's right, yeah.

Marie Forleo:

It was like, "Those feelings were real, but I should not have been listening to them."

Matthew Hussey:

No. The thing I say in the book, this is all in a section for anyone who gets it. There's a chapter called How to Rewire Your Brain, which is I think one of the most important chapters in the whole book. I talk about the importance of following your path, not your feelings, and your path is that thing you've decided on is really, really important to you. When you've got a really clear sense of what that is, you don't just stray from your path because someone comes along and makes you feel a lot intensely. Which by the way, some of the worst people are some of the best at making you feel the most intense things.

You don't just stray from your path because you feel that, you stick to your path no matter what. And that, that also, it doesn't just become a way that you learn to trust yourself, which is something most people have to learn to do, especially in their dating lives. The reason they're afraid is because they don't trust themselves. They know if I meet someone I like, I'm going to give my life over to this person and they can destroy me.

They don't trust themselves to be able to walk away when it's not right, when they're not being treated well, when their needs aren't being met. We build trust in ourselves when we follow our path, not our feelings. We also gain the respect of other people. Because people realize that they can't just come along and have an impact on you, and manipulate your emotions and take you away from something that's important to you by doing it. You always know when someone strayed from their path and into their feelings when they're telling you something that doesn't make a lot of sense. It's like they're trying to justify what it is they're doing.

I had a woman say to me, "I've got this guy, and we really like each other and we have an amazing connection." By the way, anytime someone starts with that, I always know there's a giant but coming. She said, "But we're both really busy entrepreneurs and it's really hard to see each other, so it's really hard to have a real relationship." I was like, "You..." I've been working with people for 17 years of my life in their love lives. Almost never does someone find someone they really like, feel enamored with them and go, "I'd have a relationship if only it weren't for this damn business."

Marie Forleo:

Never.

Matthew Hussey:

Never.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Matthew Hussey:

Never. I think I said to her, "Be honest with me, is that you talking?" Is it really that you're just busy and you can't find time for this relationship that's supposedly so great, or is it that he has said that and you're now repeating it to me, because it's scarier to say to him, "Well, I have a business too, but I'm actually prepared to make space and time for this relationship?" I'd like you to as well if we want to continue. She said, "Yeah, it's that one. I know he feels this way, and it's been easier to tell my friends that we're both really busy," and it was very honest with her.

But that's a time where she's not following her path. She wants to find a relationship. But her feelings for him are strong, and so now she's co-opted his excuse for not wanting a relationship and passing it off as her own because it's easier than the truth, that she's afraid to have a hard conversation.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

Matthew Hussey:

Yeah.

Marie Forleo:

I want to talk about two words. You're the first person to describe it in a way that I actually agree with and don't like roll my eyes, so congratulations there.

Matthew Hussey:

Okay.

Marie Forleo:

It's self-love.

Matthew Hussey:

Oh, I thought you were going a different direction.

Marie Forleo:

Oh. See, surprising you. I'm keeping you on your toes.

Matthew Hussey:

Okay, I thought there was another two words you weren't going to agree with.

Marie Forleo:

No.

Matthew Hussey:

Self-love, yeah.

Marie Forleo:

Again, it's just I have such... I have a cynical being that this is... When I first discovered the whole world of coaching, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is my path." There is simultaneously this huge voice in my head, I was also like 22. I was like, "Are you freaking kidding? This is the dumbest, cheesiest thing ever." It was super judgmental, super cynical, so that's a lie to me.

Every time I just see the word self-love, I'm just like, "Ugh." Literally, the eye rolls, even though because it's strange. This is what you wrote. It's like going through life trying to hand off the job we're supposed to do to someone else, and the job description is simple, to actively love and nurture ourselves. You’re right. This topic has been an obsession for me, because it's one of the biggest things I've struggled with. I am so curious how so, and then I'm happy to tell you my reflections on why that hit me so hard.

Matthew Hussey:

I never vibed with anything that was about telling myself how special I was. It never spoke to me. I never felt… For me, the same ego that could tell me I'm special was the very ego that a day later could tell me that-

Marie Forleo:

You're the worst.

Matthew Hussey:

Yeah.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

Matthew Hussey:

That I'm failing, and that nobody likes me, and that I'm going to burn it all to the ground.

Marie Forleo:

Totally.

Matthew Hussey:

That didn't feel like it was my friend, it felt like the thing that it was just this double-edged sword that sometimes pumped me up and made me feel great, and that other times cut me. I just could never get on board. None of the answers people gave when they... All I kept hearing for many years was, self-love's really important, and I went, "That seems fair." But on what basis are you loving yourself? When you say self-love, what do you mean? Why should you love yourself?

Then the answers people would give me for that made me check out. Because they'd say, "Well, because we're special." Or they'd say, "Because we deserve it." I'd be like, "But why do you deserve it? What do you mean you deserve self, I don't get it." Then they'd go, "Well, because I'm a good person, because I'm loving, because I'm generous to my family, because..." They start giving me reasons why they should love themselves. For me, I'd be like, "Well there's so much vulnerability in that, because you're not those things all the time."

Marie Forleo:

Totally.

Matthew Hussey:

If you love yourself because of all these great attributes, what do you do on the days where you don't exhibit them?

Marie Forleo:

Absolutely.

Matthew Hussey:

Is the message that you shouldn't love yourself on those days? By the way, even on the days where you're doing them well, what about when you come across someone who does them even better? Are they more deserving of love than you? We're back into comparison, and we're back into beating ourselves up when we're not getting a perfect score in life, which was always the reason I was horrible to myself, was because I was never getting a perfect enough score to make me feel good enough about myself.

This is not where it's at. I'm sorry, this is a broken model. Then people would say, "Well, I love myself because I'm special," and I'd say, "Why are you special?" I said, "Isn't everyone special?" Or are you saying in an almost narcissistic way like, "No, no, no, you are very special." Everyone else are the serfs, but you're really special." No, no, no. They would say, "Everyone's special." I'd say, "Well if everyone's special, I don't feel that special anymore. Do you?"

They'd be like, "Well," and they would sense that there were all these trapdoors in the question. I wasn't trying to be difficult, I was really trying... I think that we are very intelligent and our brains... If we can't round the logic, our brains will go... We might post on Instagram and say, "Self-love, blah, blah, blah, is really important. But internally we're like, "Nonsense."

Marie Forleo:

Bullshit, yeah.

Matthew Hussey:

I would then realize, okay, this is trying to follow a romantic model for how we love ourselves, which doesn't work. The way we fall in love with other people is never going to work for ourselves. We are not, like In Greek mythology, Narcissus. Took a look at himself in a pool of water, and instantly fell in love. For the rest of us, we don't find it that easy. 99% of us. We're struggling to even like ourselves, let alone love ourselves. We're not going to... This idea that we're going to fall in love with ourselves, it's not going to happen.

If familiarity breeds contempt, then who would we have more contempt for than the person we've been around every waking moment our entire life? The person we take for granted, the person we're bored of, the person whose tricks we all know already, the person whose mistakes and regrets and shames we are more aware of than anyone else in the world. What emotion is there room for rather than contempt?

We need a different model, and that's why I started saying in the book, "Self-love needs a rebrand." To rebrand it, we need to start adopting a different model for self-love in the first place. Where I found that model originally was... Well, I looked at it in a bunch of different places, and I found it in some really interesting places.

One place I found it is the parent-child relationship. Because I would find, if I asked parents "Why do you love your child?" Almost none of them would say, "Well, they got an A in math yesterday, and they did this really cute thing this morning, and..." They don't do that. They go, "What are you talking about? I love them because they're mine. It's my child." It almost a question that doesn't compute. It's like, "You're an idiot for even asking. It's my child, what are you talking about?"

I would see that model in other places too. Some siblings have it. He's my brother, what are you talking... He doesn't need to do anything today, he's my brother. It's my blood, I love him. You sometimes saw it in the child stuffed toy relationship, where you would have a stuffed rabbit and it didn't matter. That rabbit could have been beat up…

Marie Forleo:

Smelly.

Matthew Hussey:

Dropped in a thousand puddles. That child, if you said, "I'm going to exchange this rabbit for you for a much newer, more expensive rabbit with all of its fluff still in its seams," that child would be like, "This is my rabbit. You're not taking my rabbit, it's my rabbit." It has nothing to do with the attributes of that rabbit, it's just his rabbit, her rabbit.

I even would think about it in terms of sometimes people with their pets. You see some really ugly dogs. Proper, they look like they shouldn't exist. Missing teeth, just no fur.

Marie Forleo:

Oh, that's mine. I have a bald-

Matthew Hussey:

It's tongue hanging out the side.

Marie Forleo:

Oh, absolutely.

Matthew Hussey:

Just weird little things.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah. You come near it, you'll get punched in the face.

Matthew Hussey:

Right.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

Matthew Hussey:

If I said to you, "I've got a really handsome, stately dog," I was-

Marie Forleo:

With all hair, I would-

Matthew Hussey:

Yeah, I'll swap it out. You'd be like, what are you talking about?

Marie Forleo:

Exactly.

Matthew Hussey:

This is my dog.

Marie Forleo:

It's my baby.

Matthew Hussey:

That became a really enlightening thing for me, because I went, "Oh, I already know what that kind of love looks like. I've just been applying the wrong model of self-love." Okay, how do we apply that model to ourselves? Well, out of eight billion people on this world, here's where we get it all wrong. We think, I have to figure out a way to feel special in a world of eight billion people. Good luck. There are some really impressive people out there.

But what if you didn't need to think you were special? What if you didn't need to find any reason to think that you matched up to anyone, or that you had something they don't, or that it evens the score because they're really sporty but you are really intelligent? It's like, "Screw all of that." Then you're just got a problem when you've run into somebody who's more intelligent.

What if out of eight billion people, what was special is not how unique you are, what's special is that you're the only one who has the job of looking after the human that is you? That at birth you were given a human, and you didn't know it at the time because you were too young, and it became somebody else's job for a while to keep you alive. They may or may not have done a good job, but it was someone else's job.

But what no one told you is that at a certain point, when you came of age, it was now your job to take full custody of this human. You have one job, that's it. One job. Your job is to make this human being as happy as you can, and to give them the best life that you can, and to try to help them to fulfill the best of what they're capable of achieving, or doing or becoming. That's your only job. This is your human. You can't exchange this human for another one. You're lucky you even got a human in the first place. Your only job is to give this human the best life you can.

When you realize that, when you take that model? Suddenly you realize you don't need to like yourself in order to love yourself. Loving yourself comes first, because loving yourself is not a feeling. You don't need to feel anything. You don't need to think you're special, it's irrelevant. 

Matthew Hussey:

Your job is to love yourself as an approach. And that approach, that shift meant, oh, I know how to love myself today because I have to love myself as a verb. I have to love myself as a job, as an action, as an approach. That, for me, changed everything. And again, liking yourself can come later, right? In a parent-child relationship, many of the fruits of that relationship will come later. That child will realize later on all of the little things that the parent did for them. And the relationship grows sweeter with every realization, but we may not realize the things we're doing for ourselves today, or we may come to realize all of the beautiful things we've done for ourselves. But right now, accept you may be parenting a child, you may be parenting a strappy teenager, but it doesn't mean you can't love yourself. And that's changed my entire relationship with self-love from something that felt impossible for me, and frankly often felt insulting to my intelligence.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah, that's why my cynical was like eh.

Matthew Hussey:

But it turned it into something I knew exactly how to do. I knew how to love myself as the beat-up bunny with fluff coming out of its ears and-

Marie Forleo:

Totally.

Matthew Hussey:

... all sorts of wounds. I was like, oh, this is my human. I got to give this human a great life. And that becomes actually kind of fun because you stop judging yourself.

Marie Forleo:

I love that. Oh my God, I loved it so much. That was like when I finished the book... By the way, everyone, you need to get your hands on this puppy because it is phenomenal. That was part of the book. It had an instant paradigm shift within me because I knew it exactly. And I think you and I probably share a bunch of DNA on several levels, and one of those pieces is just like, I'll describe it in my terms, just that self punishing in terms of not enough, not da-da-da da-da-da. It's just relentless. And I was like, "Wow," when I read this. I know so intrinsically, Kuma, my partially hairless dog, he's got a party in the front, nothing in the back. He looks in the mirror and thinks he's fabulous. Everyone's like, "What happened? Is he dying?" I'm like, "So are you." Anyhow, but I know intrinsically what to do to love on that dog. And even with Josh, it's like, so, oh, I know how to love on this human.

It's a verb that... It's so... I don't want to say easy, but it's so instinctual. But I think it's pretty rare for me to turn that on myself. And it was such a great... I was like, oh my gosh. It was like an operating system got installed, like a new one. It was really fresh.

Matthew Hussey:

Because nothing else is really a given. You may take on the job of loving another human being.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Matthew Hussey:

You may take on the job of loving someone romantically. And by the way, people sometimes think, well, can I love another person that unconditionally? And the truth is, you can get very close.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

Matthew Hussey:

The only condition that remains though is I can't continue to love you if it stops me doing my job.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Matthew Hussey:

If loving you is incompatible with taking care of the human I'm... My number one job is to take care of this human. If this gets in the way of me being able to do that job, then I can't continue to have you in my life. That's the condition.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Matthew Hussey:

Everything else, you could go very, very deep loving someone beyond their traits, beyond the things that they think make them impressive. And you can love them on a, for want of a better word, a kind of soul level, human level, but the one condition is it can't get in the way of my job. And of course, many abusive relationships and many relationships where they're with pathological liars or people who gaslight them or people invalidate their needs all the time, that becomes a relationship where loving that person is fundamentally incompatible with being able to do that job.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Matthew Hussey:

You got one job.

Marie Forleo:

Thank you for doing that deep work and for putting it in the book, really.

Matthew Hussey:

Thanks for acknowledging it and noticing it because there's a lot in this book that I'm really, really, really proud of, but I am really proud of that part, and I hope that it can... I've worked on it for many, many years to refine it to the level that I have. As you know, simple ideas take years to arrive at.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Matthew Hussey:

But I hope that it can really change a lot of people's relationships with themselves because I think it's a real route. It's easy to say we need to change our relationship with ourselves, but I think very few places give us real, practical ways of thinking about that and doing that. And I've faced all these same things myself, everything that anyone could come across as a struggle in their love life or in their ability to love themselves, I have come across so many of these things myself. And in this book, this is me working these things out for myself as well.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

Matthew Hussey:

Yeah.

Marie Forleo:

You did a brilliant job.

Matthew Hussey:

Thank you.

Marie Forleo:

I've got Qs from the audience if you still got a little juice in you.

Matthew Hussey:

I'm game.

Marie Forleo:

You good?

Matthew Hussey:

Let's do it. Yeah.

Marie Forleo:

All right, amazing. And we can fast fire these, so don't feel like... Because I, actually so many came in that my organizational brain, I put them into categories. So I'm going to start with finding the one. I'm going to say a few, and then you just answer because we've really answered so much of these in the conversation. Will I ever find true love? How do I increase the odds? How do I stay hopeful that we can meet a soulmate and have a family in our 40s? And the last one, how do you know when you found the one or when to go for marriage? These are all in the realm of finding the one.

Matthew Hussey:

Oh my God, so many big questions there. So let me see if I can rapid-fire these one by one. What was the first one?

Marie Forleo:

Will I ever find true love? And how do I increase the odds?

Matthew Hussey:

So well, being proactive about creating opportunity, very, very important. So that's literally... If you think of nothing else, just think of going out into the world and being an atom that needs to collide with other atoms. Are you creating enough collisions right now? That's a very, very important thing. But you'll also find the right one faster if you say no to the wrong one quicker. So you have to get good at saying no at the same time as you're creating opportunities, because opportunities are not just going to bring you more of a chance that you meet the right person. They're also going to bring you more of the wrong people, and you're going to have to get very good at disqualifying people along the way. If the right person for you is number 15.

It's a crude way of looking at it, but if they're number 15 and you need to get through the next 14, well, if you spend three years on each one of these, you may never get to this person. But if you can zip through those 14 a lot faster, you are going to get to 15 at a completely different rate. So that proactivity and the ability to say no faster are two big ones if you want to find love faster.

Marie Forleo:

It's a numbers game. I think about that in business too. And I'm always telling people like that. I'm like, you're not talking to enough people. You're not getting enough nos. You're never going to get to those yeses. How to stay hopeful that we can meet our soulmate and have a family in our 40s?

Matthew Hussey:

Well, firstly, you better have a plan B. You better know what your plan B is. That starts... I wrote a whole chapter on this book called The Question of Having a Child, and I have no business writing this chapter other than the fact that I cannot... You can't have a conversation, especially for women, about their love lives without addressing that fundamental question. Because the thing that for so many women has been making bad decisions is the feeling of wanting to have a child, wanting to have a family, and feeling like time is slipping away, and then panic buying a relationship as a result, and all of the problems that come with that. So the hardest conversation, we've talked about this, is the one you have to have with yourself.

And in that area, what I have seen time and time again, and it's not just me speaking in this chapter, I interview two top-level doctors, one of a very recognized person in the fertility field, and another person who is a Stanford surgeon who got egg-freezing because she was weighing up her options as someone with a very, very involved career, but what I have seen over and over again is that people are not figuring out, what's my plan B if plan A doesn't work out? And plan A might be I meet someone this afternoon, they're the love of my life, and two years from now, we're having kids. That might be plan A. But if plan A doesn't happen, how important is it to you to still have a child? And you really need to have a good answer for that question. By the way, even if the answer is, I don't know, well, the “I don't know” can make you take action because you might then say, well, I'm going to freeze my eggs, or I'm going to do something that at least buys me a little more time.

And by the way, I say this in full knowledge of the price that is for people, of the hormonal impact for so many people that it's... For some, it's like it meant nothing to them. It was easy. And for others, it's terribly difficult.

Marie Forleo:

Absolutely.

Matthew Hussey:

It's invasive, so I don't say any of that lightly, but it's still always a calculation.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Matthew Hussey:

It's what options do I want to create for myself. If I don't know, what's my date to know by? Is there any way I can extend my timeline for my own indecision? Because sometimes the cliche is it's men's indecision, but a lot of women I work with, they also are in a state of indecision about how badly they want it or when they want it. Is it my voice that wants this or is it societal pressure? I don't know. Very challenging for a lot of people. But what's my plan B? If I really do want a child, what's my plan B? Am I going to do this by myself?

If I find out at some point I can't do it by myself, do I think I'll adopt? Is that an option that I could see myself doing? None of these are easy options. Raising a child on your own isn't an easy option. Adopting isn't an easy option. None of them are. That's not the point. The point is having the conversation with yourself and getting to a point where you know what's the plan B that I'm willing to make my new plan A if plan A gets taken off the table, and at what point do I take plan A off the table for myself proactively because I've got to a point where I'm no longer going to put this in somebody else's hands. I refuse. If this is something that I've decided is fundamental to my happiness, to my blueprint of the way I want my life to go, I refuse to, past a certain point, continue to put that in somebody else's hands.

I'm taking it into my own hands. And when you do that, there's a freedom even when you come back to plan A, because now if plan A is meeting someone, well, you can go out and meet someone from a much more relaxed place because you're not on a date going, "I need you." You're on a date going, "Well, I'm trying to find someone that could fulfill plan A with me, but I'm ready to divert to B when I need to." And this is a rule of life in general, but when it's time to go to plan B, what we have to do is resolve as... And this is an aggressive and creative act, but we resolve to make plan B so beautiful that we can't even imagine it not happening. We can't imagine plan A having happened because plan B was so good.

And if plan B can't happen, then you do plan C and you resolve to make plan C so stunningly beautiful that you wouldn't have wished for anything else, that's our job. So when someone says, "How do I remain hopeful in my 40s?" I'm like, you don't need hope if you have a plan, and if you know what... Yes, plan A would be nice. Don't give up on it. But what's plan B, C, D and E? And then it's not about how do I maintain hope? It's “I've got myself covered, I'm going to be happy no matter what one of these options I go with. I don't know which one yet. That's part of the fun of life, is I don't know which one. I'm going to go out and aggressively date and find an amazing person and do all of that and go for plan A, but it might be that Plan B is the greatest thing that ever happened to me, but I'm going to make that decision now. I'm not going to let that sneak up on me.”

Marie Forleo:

How do you know when you found the one?

Matthew Hussey:

I think if you feel more of yourself around that person than you have around anyone before that, that, to me, is one of the surest signs.

Marie Forleo:

That was my tell. Yeah. After so many different experiences, being with Josh, I was like, whoa, I feel like the me got turned up to a 25.

Matthew Hussey:

Yeah, that's beautiful. And I think if you find someone that you feel like... I called a friend. When I was thinking of proposing to Audrey, I called a friend and I called two people whose opinions I really valued because I also was like... Marriage is not something I grew up thinking I must get married. I needed to be sold on why marriage had any value. But the point of realizing, oh, I actually feel like getting married would be a really beautiful thing. I called a friend and I said, "I think I'm going to propose." And he said, "Why?" And I said, "Well, I feel like I'm ready to build something, and I couldn't imagine a better builder than Audrey. I've never come across someone who would build as well as she would with me." So from that point on, it felt very simple.

So I think it's who do I feel at home with? And when I think of the vision that I have for my life, who's going to make an amazing builder? Because that's makes an amazing relationship? I always say a plot... When you find someone you have a connection with, that's like a pretty plot of land. It's like maybe in an amazing part of the countryside, it may be an amazing spot in the city, whatever. It's a plot of land. A relationship is not a plot of land. A relationship is two people building something on that plot of land. And if you don't have a builder, it doesn't matter how much potential the plot of land has, you don't have anything. And that, for me, knowing that she was an amazing builder and that she was committed to building with me was huge.

Marie Forleo:

That was it. Ghosting. Guy is ghosting sometimes after a first trip together. What do I do?

Matthew Hussey:

Oh my God. Look, you realize you didn't... Whatever you thought about that person, there is more. You saw the tip of the iceberg. And what you're now seeing is, even though they're not telling you, they're just showing you through their actions, you're seeing what's beneath the surface. It doesn't make them... It's a particularly nasty thing to do to someone, but it doesn't make them evil. It makes them someone who's capable of really horrendous behavior. And people get so focused on... It's very natural to go, there must be something so wrong with me for someone to just completely ghost me after having spent this amazing time together. It makes us feel like we're worthless, but it is absolutely a reflection of the way they handle life. And you better pay attention not to what this says about you because that someone could come and tell you, "I'm not interested in continuing it."

But when someone ghosts you, especially... I'm not so... After a first date, I don't know if ghosting is the appropriate-

Marie Forleo:

Term, yes.

Matthew Hussey:

... term if someone doesn't message you after that. If you message them and they just never text you again, then that's ghosting, if neither person texts the other one. I've heard people say to me, "They ghosted me." And I'm like, "Did you text them?" And they're like, "No." So how did that person ghost you? It's not like you sent anything. But when someone goes on a trip with you, and then you follow up and they ignore you, then it's really selfish and nasty behavior, and it's a reflection of how they handle life.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah. And I say... What should I do? I'm saying delete them. I'm saying get it out.

Matthew Hussey:

Oh yeah, for sure, because you can't have someone in your life whose response to an uncomfortable emotion... Because that's what it is, right?

Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

Matthew Hussey:

I don't want to see you again for whatever reason. And instead of telling you that, I'm just going to ignore you.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah. Oh, it's cowardly.

Matthew Hussey:

What you're seeing is their response to an uncomfortable emotion, and that should be a deeply disconcerting and scary response to an uncomfortable emotion. Remember, in a relationship, like we've been talking about, you are both going to have a lot of uncomfortable emotions over time.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Matthew Hussey:

So the person you are with, you're not just with the person. You're deciding to spend a life with that person's response system to uncomfortable emotions. And if that's their response system to uncomfortable emotions, imagine how miserable your life would be with them.

Marie Forleo:

Oh, I'm like running. I see visuals of gifs just run for the door. And it's funny too, I so appreciate you because you're so good at what you do, and it's like there's so much empathy and compassion. I'm like, girl, done. I'm like, just let's get it over. Next, next, next. Should I tell my feelings to somebody who clearly likes me but pulls away?

Matthew Hussey:

What does that mean?

Marie Forleo:

I think here's my interpretation, that like, oh, he's interested, but he's probably one of those people that emotionally either shuts down or removes the attention, and she's curious if she should express that she's really liking him, or perhaps she's wondering if this is a red flag, a behavior that it's like, yeah, not so much.

Matthew Hussey:

Well, this is only relevant if he's asking for things. In other words, if he comes to you every Friday and says, "Do you want to do something this weekend?" then you have leverage. If he's not asking for anything, there's no leverage here. It's like the number of times I speak to someone and the person they're talking about isn't reaching out to them, and they're going, "What should I do?" There's nothing to do. You can't do something with nothing.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Matthew Hussey:

This person's not asking for anything. When someone comes to you and texts you... When I sent Audrey a message said, "Thinking of you," that was a version of asking for something.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

Matthew Hussey:

I'm saying, "Text me back. Let's have a moment." Right? But if someone's not texting you, they're not asking for anything, so there's no... You don't need to worry. Live your life. That situation, if he keeps coming back and saying like, "Hey, I'd like to see you. What you up to this weekend?" then you say to someone, "Look, I would like to see you, but I feel things are so inconsistent with you where one minute you want to see me and the next, I kind of don't hear from you for five days or you pull away, and that's not the kind of energy that I want in my life. I want to be around people that are consistent and show up for me and are a consistent and reliable presence in my life, especially in my love life where I want to meet and create something special with someone." So that's what I would say to that person.

Marie Forleo:

You're so good. Okay. If there was one thing that you wanted to leave everyone with today, what would it be?

Matthew Hussey:

I think we're in three relationships for our whole lives. One is our relationship with other people, the other is our relationship with ourselves, and the third is our relationship with life itself. And that last one is a real pain because you can't get out of any of these relationships, right? Until the day you die, you're going to be in all three of them. When you try to love life, it doesn't always love you back. And it can just bring problem after problem, challenge after challenge, whether it's health, whether it's family, whether it's heartbreak, whether it's the chronic pain of never even having someone to break your heart. You haven't met anyone. There are so many people out there that look at their lives today and their lives don't resemble the life they thought or hoped they would have at this point. That's hard. Life is hard.

And I think that there is a very, I want to say western brand of self-growth that I think that so often it ignores just how shitty life is, and it's really easy to forget how hard life is for so many people and how in love, there are people that get to a point in their life where they just feel invisible, where they feel like I am... You keep talking about what to do on a date. I'm not even close to finding a date. No one shows any interest in me. Nothing's happening for me. I had a woman say to me, "All this talk of raising your standards, if I didn't let go of my standards and just date people casually and accept casual hookups, I'd never have anything. Nothing would ever happen for me." This woman said, "I tried having standards for a while, for years, and I was alone. At least I have more fun this way." That's real life. That's real life.

And I've been through some very dark times in my life, and one of the privileges of my work, and I do count it as a privilege, is that I have encountered people at some of the very, very darkest moments of theirs and just the most horrific stories, a story in the book about a woman named Angela who got hit in her 20s by a drunk driver who just drove off. And not only did she suffer from feeling utterly worthless that someone could drive into her and then drive off, but she lost a leg in the process. She lost functionality in various parts of her body. She was told that she may never be able to walk again. She was told that she'd never be able to have children.

And I've watched many, many stories like hers where I have seen people in the darkest, darkest times create such magic in their lives. And that, for me, has been one of the most inspiring. I can't think of anything more inspiring as people who find a way to make magic from where they are. I live for that. I live for people who make magic from the most difficult situations or from sometimes the places of the greatest hopelessness. And I always say to people that you don't have to be happy. You just have to be happy enough. And there's a big difference. Happy feels so... When you're in the worst place of your life, happy is the most unrelatable thing in the world, but happy enough is an interesting place to come from, because when you're happy enough, you start to be able to find your footing again. And in the last chapter of this book, and truly, I so hope everyone reads it for nothing else but this chapter, I describe to people that being happy enough is almost impossible when you're in terrible pain.

So, so much of finding our footing again in life is getting to a place where we are managing our pain differently so that we can be happy enough, so that we can then start to create magic again. And we are all capable of magic, every single one of us. It may sound cheesy to some people, and hopefully people listening to this know this.

Marie Forleo:

No, we believe in magic.

Matthew Hussey:

I'm a very rational, logical person.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Matthew Hussey:

I'm not someone who uses a lot of spiritual, and... I don't veer into those territories because it doesn't resonate with me, but magic is a word that resonates with me. And I think anyone can create magic. You just have to get to a place where you can find your footing again. And I hope that this book helps people do that because... And that's why I called it, how to raise your standards, find your person, and live happily no matter what, because the no matter what is as important as the finding love part.

Marie Forleo:

That's right.

Matthew Hussey:

I want people to find love from this book. And I truly believe if they follow this book, they're going to find love a lot faster. But life is just too short to defer your happiness to a time when you'll have finally found everything you are looking for. It really is too short. So yeah, I hope people read this and they find themselves in it, and they also find something that feels real, that actually feels real, that doesn't lie to them about how easy it is, or in any way invalidate how hard they have found it because it is hard, but it's possible.

Marie Forleo:

Thank you so much for hanging out and having this great conversation. And congratulations again. I cannot wait for everyone to get their copy of Love Life, and read it and use it.

Matthew Hussey:

Thank you, Marie. It's such a pleasure. For anyone who wants to grab a copy, you can get them anywhere, but if you go to lovelifebook.com, not only can you get it, there's Amazon Links and Barnes and Noble and everything else there, but if you come back to that site and put in your receipt, there's a ticket waiting for you to an event I'm doing on May the fourth called Find Your Person, which is going to be really fun. It's going to be a live coaching experience with me. Audrey, my wife is going to be there, who's sitting back there.

Marie Forleo:

Yay.

Matthew Hussey:

And it's going to be an amazing accompaniment to the book. So you'll get the book, Love Life, delivered to you, but you'll also get the ticket to the event, which is a virtual event, so you can join from wherever in the world. And that's all at lovelifebook.com.

Marie Forleo:

Perfect. Thank you.

Matthew Hussey:

Thanks, Marie.

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